According to the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus Christ spent 40 days fasting in the desert, where he endured temptation by Satan.[2] Lent originated as a mirroring of this, fasting 40 days as preparation for Easter. Every Sunday was seen as a commemoration of the Sunday of Christ's resurrection and so as a feast day on which fasting was inappropriate. Accordingly, Christians fasted from Monday to Saturday (six days) during six weeks and from Wednesday to Saturday (four days) in the preceding week, thus making up the number of 40 days.[3] Orthodox do this 40 days in a row.

Ash Wednesday derives its name from the practice of blessing ashes made from palm branches blessed on the previous year's Palm Sunday, and placing them on the heads of participants to the accompaniment of the words "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" or "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return".[4]

A priest marks a cross of ashes on a worshipper's forehead, the prevailing form in English-speaking countries.[5]

Ashes are ceremonially placed on the heads of Christians on Ash Wednesday, either by being sprinkled over their heads or, in English-speaking countries, more often by being marked on their foreheads as a visible cross. The words (based on Genesis 3:19) used traditionally to accompany this gesture are:

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

In the 1969 revision of the Roman Rite, an alternative formula (based on Mark 1:15) was introduced and given first place:

Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

The old formula, based on the words spoken to Adam and Eve after their sin,[6] reminds worshippers of their sinfulness and mortality and thus, implicitly, of their need to repent in time.[7] The newer formula makes explicit what was only implicit in the old.

An 1881 Polish painting of a priest sprinkling ashes on the heads of worshippers, the form prevailing in, for instance, Italy, Spain, and parts of Latin America.[5]

Various manners of placing the ashes on worshippers' heads are in use within the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the two most common being to use the ashes to make a cross on the forehead and sprinkling the ashes over the crown of the head. Originally, the ashes were strewn over men's heads, but, probably because women had their heads covered in church, were placed on the foreheads of women.[8] In the Catholic Church the manner of imposing ashes depends largely on local custom, since no fixed rule has been laid down.[5] Although the account of Ælfric of Eynsham shows that in about the year 1000 the ashes were "strewn" on the head,[9] the marking of the forehead is the method that now prevails in English-speaking countries and is the only one envisaged in the Occasional Offices of the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea, a publication described as "noticeably Anglo-Catholic in character".[10] In its ritual of "Blessing of Ashes", this states that "the ashes are blessed at the beginning of the Eucharist; and after they have been blessed they are placed on the forehead of the clergy and people."[10] The Ash Wednesday ritual of the Church of England, Mother Church of the Anglican Communion, contains "The Imposition of Ashes" in its Ash Wednesday liturgy.[11] On Ash Wednesday, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, traditionally takes part in a penitential procession from the Church of Saint Anselm to the Basilica of Santa Sabina, where, in accordance with the custom in Italy and many other countries, ashes are sprinkled on his head, not smudged on his forehead, and he places ashes on the heads of others in the same way.[12]

The Anglican ritual, used in Papua New Guinea states that, after the blessing of the ashes, "the priest marks his own forehead and then the foreheads of the servers and congregation who come and kneel, or stand, where they normally receive the Blessed Sacrament."[10] The corresponding Catholic ritual in the Roman Missal for celebration within Mass merely states: "Then the Priest places ashes on the head of those present who come to him, and says to each one ..."[13] Pre-1970 editions had much more elaborate instructions about the order in which the participants were to receive the ashes, but again without any indication of the form of placing the ashes on the head.[14] The 1969 revision of the Roman Rite inserted into the Mass the solemn ceremony of blessing ashes and placing them on heads, but also explicitly envisaged a similar solemn ceremony outside of Mass.[13] The Book of Blessings contains a simple rite.[5] While the solemn rite would normally be carried out within a church building, the simple rite could appropriately be used almost anywhere. While only a priest or deacon may bless the ashes, laypeople may do the placing of the ashes on a person's head. Even in the solemn rite, lay men or women may assist the priest in distributing the ashes. In addition, laypeople take blessed ashes left over after the collective ceremony and place them on the head of the sick or of others who are unable to attend the blessing.[5][15] (In 2014, Anglican Liverpool Cathedral likewise offered to impose ashes within the church without a solemn ceremony.)[16]

In addition, those who attend such Catholic services, whether in a church or elsewhere, traditionally take blessed ashes home with them to place on the heads of other members of the family,[17] and it is recommended to have envelopes available to facilitate this practice.[18] At home the ashes are then placed with little or no ceremony.

Unlike its discipline regarding sacraments, the Catholic Church does not exclude from receiving sacramentals, such as the placing of ashes on the head, those who are not Catholics and perhaps not even baptized.[15] Even those who have been excommunicated and are therefore forbidden to celebrate sacramentals are not forbidden to receive them.[19] After describing the blessing, the rite of Blessing and Distribution of Ashes (within Mass) states: "Then the Priest places ashes on the heads of all those present who come to him."[13] The Catholic Church does not limit distribution of blessed ashes to within church buildings and has suggested the holding of celebrations in shopping centres, nursing homes, and factories.[18] Such celebrations presume preparation of an appropriate area and include readings from Scripture (at least one) and prayers, and are somewhat shorter if the ashes are already blessed.[20]

Since 2007, some members of major Christian Churches, including Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics and Methodists, have participated in the Ashes to Go program, in which clergy go outside of their churches to public places, such as downtowns, sidewalks and train stations, to impose ashes on passersby,[21][22][23] even on people waiting in their cars for a stoplight to change.[24] Anglican priest, Rev. Emily Mellott of Calvary Church in Lombard took up the idea and turned it into a movement, stated that the practice was also an act of evangelism.[25][26] Anglicans and Catholics in parts of the United Kingdom such as Sunderland, are offering Ashes to Go together: Fr. Marc Lyden-Smith, the priest of Saint Mary's Church stated that the ecumenical effort is a "tremendous witness in our city, with Catholics and Anglicans working together to start the season of Lent, perhaps reminding those who have fallen away from the Church, or have never been before, that the Christian faith is alive and active in Sunderland."[21] In the US, a spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said that Catholic priests were unlikely to participate,[22] although the Catholic Student Association of Kent State University offered ashes to university students who were going through the Student Center of that institution,[27] and the Rev. Douglas Clark of St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Church in Statesboro, among others, have participated in Ashes to Go.[28][29] Reverend Trey Hall, pastor of Urban Village United Methodist Church, stated that when his local church offered ashes in Chicago "nearly 300 people received ashes – including two people who were waiting in their car for a stoplight to change."[24] In 2013, churches not only in the United States, but also at least one church each in the United Kingdom, Canada and South Africa, participated in Ashes to Go.[30] However, in 2014, only one church outside the United States was reported as participating, while in the United States itself 34 states and the District of Columbia had at least one church taking part. Most of these churches (parishes) were Episcopal, but there were also several Methodist churches, as well as fewer Presbyterian and Independent Catholic churches.[31]

The Catholic Church and the Methodist Church say that the ashes should be those of palm branches blessed at the previous years Palm Sunday service,[13][32] while a Church of England publication says they "may be made" from the burnt palm crosses of the previous year.[10][11] These sources do not speak of adding anything to the ashes other than, for the Catholic liturgy, a sprinkling with holy water when blessing them. An Anglican website speaks of mixing the ashes with a small amount of holy water or olive oil as a fixative.[33]

Where ashes are placed on the head by smudging the forehead with a sign of the cross, many Christians choose to keep the mark visible throughout the day. The churches have not imposed this as an obligatory rule, and the ashes may even be wiped off immediately after receiving them;[34][35] but some Christian leaders, such as Lutheran pastor Richard P. Bucher and Catholic bishop Kieran Conry, recommend it as a public profession of faith.[36][37] Rev. Morgan Guyton, a Methodist pastor and leader in the Red-Letter Christian movement, encourages Christians to wear their ashed cross throughout the day as an exercise of religious freedom.[38]

Robin Knowles Wallace states that the traditional Ash Wednesday church service includes Psalm 51 (the Miserere), prayers of confession and the sign of ashes.[39] No single one of the traditional services contains all of these elements. The Anglican Church's traditional Ash Wednesday service, titled A Commination,[40] contains the first two elements, but not the third. On the other hand, the Catholic Church's traditional service has the blessing and distribution of ashes but, while prayers of confession and recitation of Psalm 51 (the first psalm at Lauds on all penitential days, including Ash Wednesday) are a part of its general traditional Ash Wednesday liturgy,[41] they are not associated specifically with the rite of blessing the ashes. The rite of blessing has acquired an untraditional weak association with that particular psalm only since 1970, when it was inserted into the celebration of Mass, at which a few verses of Psalm 51 are used as a responsorial psalm. Coincidentally, it was only about the same time that in some areas Anglicanism resumed the rite of ashes.

In the mid-16th century, the first Book of Common Prayer removed the ceremony of the ashes from the liturgy of the Church of England and replaced it with what would later be called the Commination Office.[42] In that 1549 edition, the rite was headed: "The First Day of Lent: Commonly Called Ash-Wednesday".[43] The ashes ceremony was not forbidden, but was not included in the church's official liturgy and fell into complete disuse by the early 17th century.[44] Its place was taken by reading biblical curses of God against sinners, to each of which the people were directed to respond with Amen.[45][46] The text of the "Commination or Denouncing of God's Anger and Judgments against Sinners" begins: "In the primitive Church there was a godly discipline, that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance, and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to offend. Instead whereof, until the said discipline may be restored again, (which is much to be wished,) it is thought good that at this time (in the presence of you all) should be read the general sentences of God's cursing against impenitent sinners".[47] In line with this, Joseph Hooper Maude wrote that the establishment of The Commination was due to a desire of the reformers "to restore the primitive practice of public penance in church". He further stated that "the sentences of the greater excommunication" within The Commination corresponded to those used in the ancient Church.[48] The Anglican Church's Ash Wednesday liturgy, he wrote, also traditionally included the Miserere, which, along with "what follows" in the rest of the service (lesser Litany, Lord's Prayer, three prayers for pardon and final blessing), "was taken from the Sarum services for Ash Wednesday".[48] From the Sarum Rite practice in England the service took Psalm 51 and some prayers that in the Sarum Missal accompanied the blessing and distribution of ashes.[41][49] In the Sarum Rite, the Miserere psalm was one of the seven penitential psalms that were recited at the beginning of the ceremony.[50] In the 20th century, the Episcopal Church introduced three prayers from the Sarum Rite and omitted the Commination Office from its liturgy.[44]

In some of the low church traditions, other practices are sometimes added or substituted, as other ways of symbolizing the confession and penitence of the day. For example, in one common variation, small cards are distributed to the congregation on which people are invited to write a sin they wish to confess. These small cards are brought forth to the altar table where they are burned.[51]

Ashes were used in ancient times to express grief. When Tamar was raped by her half-brother, "she sprinkled ashes on her head, tore her robe, and with her face buried in her hands went away crying" (2 Samuel 13:19). The gesture was also used to express sorrow for sins and faults. In Job42:3–6, Job says to God: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." The prophet Jeremiah calls for repentance by saying: "O daughter of my people, gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes" (Jer 6:26). The prophet Daniel recounted pleading to God: "I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes" (Daniel 9:3). Just prior to the New Testament period, the rebels fighting for Jewish independence, the Maccabees, prepared for battle using ashes: "That day they fasted and wore sackcloth; they sprinkled ashes on their heads and tore their clothes" (1 Maccabees 3:47; see also 4:39).

Christians continued the practice of using ashes as an external sign of repentance. Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225) said that confession of sin should be accompanied by lying in sackcloth and ashes.[52] The historian Eusebius (c. 260/265 – 339/340) recounts how a repentant apostate covered himself with ashes when begging Pope Zephyrinus to readmit him to communion.[53]

John W. Fenton writes that "by the end of the 10th century, it was customary in Western Europe (but not yet in Rome) for all the faithful to receive ashes on the first day of the Lenten fast. In 1091, this custom was then ordered by Pope Urban II at the council of Benevento to be extended to the church in Rome. Not long after that, the name of the day was referred to in the liturgical books as "Feria Quarta Cinerum" (i.e., Ash Wednesday)."[54]

The public penance that grave sinners underwent before being admitted to Holy Communion just before Easter lasted throughout Lent, on the first day of which they were sprinkled with ashes and dressed in sackcloth. When, towards the end of the first millennium, the discipline of public penance was dropped, the beginning of Lent, seen as a general penitential season, was marked by sprinkling ashes on the heads of all.[55] This practice is found in the Gregorian Sacramentary of the late 8th century.[7][56] About two centuries later, Ælfric of Eynsham, an Anglo-Saxon abbot, wrote of the rite of strewing ashes on heads at the start of Lent.[9][57]

The article on Ash Wednesday in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica says that, after the Protestant Reformation, the ashes ceremony was not forbidden in the Church of England, a statement that may explain the claim by Blair Meeks that the Anglican tradition "never lapsed in this observance".[58] It was even prescribed under King Henry VIII in 1538 and under King Edward VI in 1550, but it fell completely out of use by soon after 1600.[44] In 1536, the Ten Articles issued by authority of Henry VIII commended "the observance of various rites and ceremonies as good and laudable, such as clerical vestments, sprinkling of holy water, bearing of candles on Candlemas-day, giving of ashes on Ash-Wednesday".[59] After Henry's death in January 1547, Thomas Cranmer, within the same year, "procured an order from the Council to forbid the carrying of candles on Candlemas-day, and the use of ashes on Ash-Wednesday, and of palms on Palm-Sunday, as superstitious ceremonies", an order that was issued only for the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury, of which Cranmer was archbishop.[60][61][62]The Church Cyclopædia states that the "English office had adapted the very old Salisbury service for Ash-Wednesday, prefacing it with an address and a recital of the curses of Mount Ebal, and then with an exhortation uses the older service very nearly as it stood."[48][63] The new Commination Office had no blessing of ashes and therefore, in England as a whole, "soon after the Reformation, the use of ashes was discontinued as a 'vain show' and Ash Wednesday then became only a day of marked solemnity, with a memorial of its original character in a reading of the curses denounced against impenitent sinners".[64] The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in the 19th century, observed Ash Wednesday: "as a day of fasting and humiliation, wherein we are publicly to confess our sins, meekly to implore God's mercy and forgiveness, and humbly to intercede for the continuance of his favour".[65] In the 20th century, the Book of Common Prayer provided prayers for the imposition of ashes.[66]

Monte Canfield and Blair Meeks state that after the Protestant Reformation, some Lutherans kept the rite, and that many Protestant denominations that did not keep it encouraged its use "during and after the ecumenical era that resulted in the Vatican II proclamations".[58][67]Jack Kingsbury and Russell F. Anderson likewise state that the practice was continued among some Anglicans and Lutherans.[68][69] On the other hand, Edward Traill Horn wrote: "The ceremony of the distribution of the ashes was not retained by the reformers, whether Lutheran, Anglican or Reformed", although these denominations honored Ash Wednesday as the first day of Lent.[70] Similarly, a document of the Lutheran Missouri Synod Worship Library states: "Lutherans at the time of the Reformation did not choose to retain the imposition of Ashes. ... although Lutherans began Lent with Ash Wednesday, they did not retain the use of ashes as part of their Ash Wednesday order of service."[71]Frank Senn, a liturgical scholar, has been quoted as saying: "How and why the use of ashes fell out of Lutheran use is difficult to discern from the sources… [C]hurch orders don't specifically say not to use ashes; they simply stopped giving direction for blessing and distributing them and eventually the pastors just stopped doing it."[72]

The Eastern Orthodox churches generally do not observe Ash Wednesday,[76] although in recent times, the creation of the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate has led to the observance of Ash Wednesday among Western Orthodox parishes.[54] In this tradition, ashes "may be distributed outside of the mass or any liturgical service" although "commonly the faithful receive their ashes immediately before the Ash Wednesday mass".[54] In Orthodoxy, historically, "serious public sinners in the East also donned sackcloth, including those who made the Great Fast a major theme of their entire lives such as hermits and desert-dwellers."[77]Byzantine Catholics, although in the United States they use "the same Gregorian calendar as the Roman Catholic rite", do not practice the distribution of ashes as it is "not part of their ancient tradition".[78]

In the Ambrosian Rite, ashes are blessed and placed on the heads of the faithful not on the day that elsewhere is called Ash Wednesday, but at the end of Mass on the following Sunday, which in that rite inaugurates Lent, with the fast traditionally beginning on Monday, the first weekday of the Ambrosian Lent.[79][80][81][82]

In the Latin Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday is observed by fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance—a day of contemplating one's transgressions. The AnglicanBook of Common Prayer also designates Ash Wednesday as a day of fasting. In other Christian denominations these practices are optional, with the main focus being on repentance. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, Latin Catholics between the ages of 18 and 59 (whose health enables them to do so) are permitted to consume only one full meal, which may be supplemented by two smaller meals, which together should not equal the full meal. Some Catholics will go beyond the minimum obligations demanded by the Church and undertake a complete fast or a bread and water fast. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are also days of abstinence from meat (mammals and fowl), as are all Fridays during Lent.[84] Some Catholics continue fasting throughout Lent,[citation needed] as was the Church's traditional requirement,[85] concluding only after the celebration of the Easter Vigil. Where the Ambrosian Rite is observed, the day of fasting and abstinence is postponed to the first Friday in the Ambrosian Lent, nine days later.[80]

In the medieval period, the day before Ash Wednesday was the required annual day of confessing one's sins and receiving absolution and instructions on the penances to be performed during Lent, the reason it was called Shrove Tuesday.[86] Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) was also the last day of the Carnival season, which continues until Saturday in areas where the Ambrosian Rite, with its later Lent, is observed. Dutch tradition holds the custom to eat salted herring on Ash Wednesday to conclude the carnival in the Netherlands.

Ash Wednesday occurs 46 days before Easter. In the next years it will fall on these dates:

2017 – March 1

2018 – February 14

2019 – March 6

2020 – February 26

2021 – February 17

2022 – March 2

2023 – February 22

2024 – February 14

2025 – March 5

2026 – February 18

The earliest date Ash Wednesday can occur is 4 February (which is only possible during a common year with Easter on 22 March), which happened in 1598, 1693, 1761 and 1818 and will next occur in 2285.[87] The latest date Ash Wednesday can occur is 10 March (when Easter Day falls on 25 April) which occurred in 1546, 1641, 1736, 1886 and 1943 and will next occur in 2038. Ash Wednesday has never occurred on Leap Year Day (29 February), and it will not occur as such until 2096. The only other years of the third millennium that will have Ash Wednesday on 29 February are 2468, 2688, 2840 and 2992. (Ash Wednesday falls on 29 February only if Easter is on 15 April in a leap year starting on a Sunday.)

The Eastern Orthodox Church does not, in general, observe Ash Wednesday; instead, Orthodox Great Lent begins on Clean Monday. There are, however, a relatively small number of Orthodox Christians who follow the Western Rite; these do observe Ash Wednesday, although often on a different day from the previously mentioned denominations, as its date is determined from the Orthodox calculation of Pascha, which may be as much as a month later than the Western observance of Easter.

^ abThe Lives of the Saints: "We read in the books both in the Old Law and in the New that the men who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast."

^Brandon, Loretta. "A modern way to begin the Lenten season". Statesboro Herald. Retrieved 3 April 2014. Ministers participating in Ashes to Go include the Rev. Dan Lewis from First Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Joan Kilian from Trinity Episcopal Church, the Rev. Bill Bagwell and the Rev. Jonathan Smith from Pittman Park United Methodist Church, the Rev. Douglas Clark of St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Church, and the Rev. James Byrd, from St. Andrew's Chapel Church.

^"Catholics Who Can't Make it to Church can Get 'Ashes to Go'". KFBK News and Radio. 5 March 2014. Retrieved 2 April 2014. Some Catholics who couldn't make it to church this morning got their "Ashes on the Go." Father Tony Prandini with Good Shepherd Catholic Parish was conducting Ash Wednesday rituals -- marking foreheads -- outside of the State Capitol.

^Ford, Penny. "Lent 101". Upper Room Ministries. On what we now call Palm Sunday, Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem while people waved palms and cheered him on. Less than a week later, Jesus was killed. The palms that were waved in joy became ashes of sorrow. We get ashes for Ash Wednesday by saving the palms from Palm Sunday, burning them, and mixing them with a little water (like tears). It's symbolic.

^"Lent and Easter". The Diocese of London. 17 March 2004. Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent, the period of forty days before Easter. It is so called because of the Church's tradition of making the sign of the cross on people's foreheads, as a sign of penitence and of Christian witness. The ash is made by burning palm crosses from the previous year and is usually mixed with a little holy water or oil.

^Bucher, Richard P. "The History and Meaning of Ash Wednesday". Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. Retrieved 2 April 2014. Many Christians choose to leave the ashes on their forehead for the remainder of the day, not to be showy and boastful (see Matthew 6:16-18). Rather, they do it as a witness that all people are sinners in need of repentance AND that through Jesus all sins are forgiven through faith.

^Arco, Anna (3 March 2011). "Don't rub off your ashes, urges bishop". The Catholic Herald. Catholic Herald. Retrieved 2 April 2014. Catholics should try not to rub their ashes off after Ash Wednesday Mass, an English bishop has said. Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton, who heads the department of evangelization and catechesis, urged Catholics across Britain to wear "the outward sign of our inward sorrow for our sins and for our commitment to Jesus as Our Lord and Savior". He said: "The wearing of the ashes provides us with a wonderful opportunity to share with people how important our faith is to us and to point them to the cross of Christ. I invite you where possible to attend a morning or lunchtime Mass.

^Guyton, Morgan (21 February 2012). "Like Religious Freedom? Wear Ashes on Wednesday!". Red Letter Christians. Retrieved 2 April 2014. I strongly believe that wearing ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday is the best way to 1) assert our religious freedom as citizens and 2) remember that our call as Christians is to be witnesses first and foremost.

^Mant, Richard (1825). The Book of Common Prayer: And Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the United Church of England and Ireland: Together with the Psalter Or Psalms of David, Pointed as They are to be Sung Or Said in Churches; and the Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion: with Notes Explanatory, Practical and Historical, from Approved Writers of the Church of England. W. Baxter. p. 510.

^Mant, Richard (1825). The Book of Common Prayer: And Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the United Church of England and Ireland: Together with the Psalter Or Psalms of David, Pointed as They are to be Sung Or Said in Churches; and the Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion: with Notes Explanatory, Practical and Historical, from Approved Writers of the Church of England. Oxford: W. Baxter. p. 506.|access-date= requires |url= (help)

^ abcMaude, Joseph Hooper (1901). The History of the Book of Common Prayer. E.S. Gorham. p. 110. Retrieved 12 April 2014. The Commination. This service was composed in 1549. In the ancient services there was nothing that corresponded at all nearly to the first part of this service, except the sentences of the greater excommunication, which were commonly read in parish churches three or four times a year. Some of the reformers were very anxious to restore the primitive practice of public penance in church, which was indeed occasionally practiced, at least until the latter part of the eighteenth century, and they put forward this service as a sort of substitute. The Miserere and most of what follows was taken from the Sarum services for Ash Wednesday.

^ abMeeks, Blair Gilmer (2003). Season of Ash and Fire: Prayers and Liturgies for Lent and Easter. Abingdon Press. p. 107. ISBN9780687044542. Retrieved 17 April 2014. In recent years Christians from the Reformed branch of the Protestant tradition have begun to recover a practice that dates in the Western church at least to the tenth century. That is to begin Lent on the Wednesday before the First Sunday in Lent with a service of repentance and commitment, including the imposition of ashes. The Lutheran and Anglican traditions, of course, never lapsed in this observance, and the liturgical reforms of Vatican II have made Roman Catholic prayers and rubrics more accessible to other traditions through ecumenical dialogues.

^Schaff, Philip (1877). A History of the Creeds of Christendom. London: Hodder and Stoughton. p. 612.

^ abRev. Dr. Monte Canfield, ThD (20 February 2009). "Ash Wednesday: What is it About?". Salon. Retrieved 16 April 2014. After the Reformation most Protestant church denominations, while recognizing Ash Wednesday as a holy day, did not engage in the imposition of ashes. Many Anglican, Episcopal and some Lutheran churches did continue the rite but it was mostly reserved for use in the Roman Catholic Church. During and after the ecumenical era that resulted in the Vatican II proclamations, many of the Protestant denominations encouraged a liturgical revival in their churches and the Ash Wednesday imposition of ashes was encouraged.

^Kingsbury, Jack D.; Pennington, Chester (11 December 1980). Lent. Fortress Press. ISBN9780800640934. Retrieved 16 April 2014. The imposition of ashes symbolizes the penitential nature of the season of Lent. While this custom is still observed in the Roman Catholic church, and in some Lutheran and Anglican parishes, it has not been retained in Reformed churches.

^Anderson, Russell F. (1996). Lectionary Preaching Workbook. CSS Publishing. p. 104. ISBN9780788008214. Retrieved 16 April 2014. Ashes are a traditional symbol of penitence and remorse. The practice of imposing ashes on the first day of Lent continues to this day in the church of Rome as well as in many Lutheran and Episcopalian quarters.

^William P. Lazarus, Mark Sullivan. Comparative Religion For Dummies. For Dummies. p. 98. Retrieved 8 March 2011. This is the day Lent begins. Christians go to church to pray and have a cross drawn in ashes on their foreheads. The ashes draw on an ancient tradition and represent repentance before God. The holiday is part of Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Episcopalian liturgies, among others.

^Baptists mark Ash Wednesday JEFF BRUMLEY February 13, 2013 | While long associated with Catholic and various liturgical Protestant denominations, its observance has spread in recent years to traditions known more for avoiding liturgical seasons than embracing them.

^Dipippo, Gregory (16 February 2014). "Septuagesima in the Ambrosian Rite". New Liturgical Movement. Retrieved 8 June 2014. The Ambrosian Rite still to this day has no Ash Wednesday; it is therefore Quinquagesima that forms the prelude to Lent, properly so-called, which the Roman Rite has in Ash Wednesday and the ferias "post Cineres".

^"Lent with Jesus in the desert to fight the spirit of evil". Asia News.it. 3 May 2006. Turning to the gospel of the day, which is about Jesus' 40 days in the desert, "where he overcame the temptations of Satan" (cfr Mk 1:12–13), Pope Benedict XVI exhorted Christians to follow "their Teacher and Lord to face together with Him 'the struggle against the spirit of evil'." He said: "The desert is rather an eloquent metaphor of the human condition."